The six essays collected in this volume are a selection from a number of papers which were given at a one-day colloquium on 'Art, Literature and the Spanish Civil War'
which was held in Westfield College on 18 July 1986,
precisely fifty years to the day after Franco's military coup in the Canary Islands, which was destined to have such a decisive effect on the course of Spanish history.
Though this date subsequently became a Francoist celebration - the so-called 'Dia del Alzamiento' (Day of the Uprising) - the papers collected here do not demonstrate a Francoist bias. The overall approach is intertextual and interdisciplinary, thereby stressing the international nature of the artistic response to the war.
For the benefit of the English reader, all foreign quotations are followed by an English translation.